Monday, August 25 was the first day of school. My routine was back to normal. I went to Jazzercise at IceWorld at 6:00 p.m and when I walked to my car afterclass the wind was really strong and I could see smoke. That's not unusual because there is an locomotive plant nearby the fires up the engines from time to time producing smoke. I started to drive home and the smoke got blacker and more dense the closer I got to home. Then I turned on Amity. Lots of fire engines, police cars and one ambulance passed me and I got stuck in the middle of a mess. As I looked at the powerstation on the right of me I saw many, many, small sagebrush fires. They were starting to close the road and I cellphoned Paul and asked him to rescue me because I was stuck on Amity Road with a full tank of gas and fire all around me. Luckily the fire engines pulled to the side of the road and I was able to drive the rest of the way on Amity and turn onto Trails End to my house. At this time, I could see 2 houses completely engulfed in flames. Ed called from Japan and I visited with him for a few minutes and then walked back to Amity from my house to watch the fire. In this short time, now I could count 10 houses burning.
The fire, the road and me. Yikes, that's really close.
My street sign. Amity and Trails End.
Fireman throwing flares in the sagebrush right along the road to limit the fire fuel. Amity was quarantined off and Paul and I were stuck. Other neighborhoods were being evacuated. My co-worker Charlene was evacuated with no where to go. She went to the LDS church in Columbia Village with her dog in tears.
Over 41 firestation units were called in to fight the fire-as far away as Gem County. Here they are trying to boundary the fire so it doesn't burn more neighborhoods (like mine!)
Fire was burning on the sagebrush on the other side of Amity Road and 50 mile per hour winds were fanning it towards the houses on the ridge. I was hoping the wind wouldn't change directions and jump the road. We would have been caught between the fire and the canal. I would have jumped in the canal and taken my chances.
The smoke was so thick, it hides the other houses on fire to the left. 10 houses burned on the ridge. 9 others were damaged.
I wondered as I saw this plane appear out of the smoke how the pilot was doing. Could he see? Was he going on instruments? Was he having "flashbacks" of a war zone. My sweet little corner of the world looked like a hundred bombs had hit us.
Today I rode my bike to school and pedaled past all the devastation. The smell of smoke was still very strong. I said a silent prayer thanking Heavenly Father that the wind didn't change directions and my house was still standing.
